comrade of General Joe
Johnston--had, like him, been rewarded for his sacrifices in coming
South, and his able exertions afterward, by the coldness and neglect of
the Government. But like him, too, he forgot personal wrongs; and, when
ordered to North Carolina, threw his whole energy and skill into the
works of defense for the coast and for that vital artery of railroad,
on which the life of the South depended.

Butler still waged his peculiar warfare upon unarmed men and weak women
in the soft nest he had made himself, at New Orleans; but Mobile reared
her defiant crest and took into her bosom peaceful vessels laden with
stores of priceless utility, only to send them out again--bristling
with rifled cannon, fleet-winged and agile, ready to pounce upon the
Federal shipping.

In the Middle West, Johnston's presence had acted like oil upon the
darkening waters of trouble and despair. There had been no record of
fresh disaster, or fresh mismanagement; the troops were recruiting,
resting and increasing in numbers and efficiency; the cavalry,
mobilized under Van Dorn--at last placed in his proper sphere--had done
efficient and harassing, if desultory warfare, upon the enemy's small
posts and communications. Pegram--by his effective raid through
Kentucky--had shown that her people there were not forgotten by their
brothers beyond; and his skillful retreat--laden with heavy droves of
cattle and in the face of a superior force--gained him high praise from
his superior officers.

And so the people watched and waited--hopeless no longer, but quite
recovered from the prostration of the rapid, heavy and continuous blows
of the previous autumn. Steadfast and buoyant, as they were ever, the
masses of the South once more turned their backs upon past disaster,
looking eagerly through the dark cloud for the silver lining they felt
must be beyond.

And again, as ever, they turned their eyes toward Virginia--stately and
calm amid the shock of battle. And they hoped not in vain; for over her
blackened fields--furrowed by shot and shell, drenched with blood of
best and bravest, but only more sacred for the precious libation--was
again to ring the clarion shout of victory that ever swelled from the
lines of Stonewall Jackson!

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE FAILURE IN FINANCE.

When the competent historian shall at last undertake a thoughtful work
upon our great struggle, there can be little doubt that he will rank
among the primary ca